Needed to reinstall parts of Gnome after hardware problem?

DarkPath · 2005-10-05 02:51:29

Wasn't sure exactly where to post this, but I suppose this is the best place for it. Thankfully, I've already solved my problem but I wonder if anyone has any ideas on why it was a problem in the first place.

Apparently, either my CPU or my motherboard does not like the dynamic CPU scaling of my Pentium-M processor. In Windows, my laptop would sometimes lock up to the point where all I could do was hold the power button to turn it off. Nothing else responds. I fixed this in Windows by changing my power settings so that the CPU stays at a constant speed (apparently, it's just the CHANGING speeds of the processor that screws it up... I can start my computer at either full speed or its lowest speed and as long as I don't try to change that, I'm in no danger of freezing up). Well, I got CPU scaling working in Linux and I had the same problem... hard lock up of my computer where all I could do was power it off.

However, when I booted back into Linux and tried to get into Gnome, my wallpaper, icons, theme, and parts of Gnome itself were not working. I couldn't even log out at one point and just had to kill the xserver. After some pacman reinstalls of Gnome, gnome-session, gnome-themes, gtk, and gtk2 everything seems to be working fine again. What do you think happened? I use ReiserFS for my filesystem, but after using reiserfsck from Knoppix there were no errors on my drive. It was really strange. At least everything is working now. :-)

Moo-Crumpus · 2005-10-05 08:43:01

I could not see how the hardware should effect gnome - wether it is the gnome-session, or gdm, not to mention wallpapers, icons, themes. But if you run hardware addressed applets, desklets and things like that, they could crash. Normaly, gnome panel will tell you if you run unsupported applets, and ask wether they should be removed or not.

I would allways blame reiserfs .

DarkPath · 2005-10-06 18:52:40

Would there be some temporary file that was created while I was in Gnome that essentially 'locked' me from using certain functions again maybe? IE, a file created while I'm in Gnome or X and then deleted when I log out? I'm just really trying to figure out what the problem was/is so I can hopefully fix it without reinstalling gnome again. ;-)

iom · 2005-10-07 12:35:47

DarkPath wrote:

Wasn't sure exactly where to post this, but I suppose this is the best place for it. Thankfully, I've already solved my problem but I wonder if anyone has any ideas on why it was a problem in the first place.

interesting!
i was also using reiserfs3 on my pentium-m and after i installed (via pacman -U package....tar.gz) a package i had just built (it was nothing wrong with it, it contained a couple of files in /opt/ and no .install script...), a bunch of my files in /var and /opt disappeared. among them: gdm files, gnome icons, gnome desktop... some fonts.. i couldn't start X.

so: that was it? i don't know, the files just weren't there anymore. anyway, i sent my notebook back to check whether there is something wrong with its harddisk.

i don't believe it's reiserfs's fault. at least not reiserfs3.

P.S. when pacman installed a package, it copied some files to /opt and updated /var/pacman.../. as i mentioned both /var and /opt were destroyed. it cannot be pacman's fault either. is it reiserfs's fault after all?

DarkPath · 2005-10-07 13:52:18

That's almost exactly what happened to me after I looked around my files. Obviously, reinstalling what was deleted solved the problem... I could even start X, but when Gnome came up there was no splash screen--just a grey box. There were no icons and no themes with icons worked. Very strange.

iom · 2005-10-15 19:36:29

it is NOT a reiserfs problem. i've just reinstalled everything to a _new_ harddisk, i am now using ext3.
i tried the same thing as the the other day: makepkg for the same package (intel compiler icc package made by myself: rpmunpack, install, sed ...).
but when i did pacman -U package...pkg.tar.gz. almost the same thing happened. my package was not really valid: /opt/intel had chmod 700.

i think pacman should reject changing the permissions of an existing directory.

Moo-Crumpus · 2005-10-16 06:25:38

why pacman should do so?

mpie · 2005-10-16 06:30:29

iom wrote:

it is NOT a reiserfs problem. i've just reinstalled everything to a _new_ harddisk, i am now using ext3.
i tried the same thing as the the other day: makepkg for the same package (intel compiler icc package made by myself: rpmunpack, install, sed ...).
but when i did pacman -U package...pkg.tar.gz. almost the same thing happened. my package was not really valid: /opt/intel had chmod 700.
i think pacman should reject changing the permissions of an existing directory.

the intel compilers are in the aur use that build.....

the problems you are having sounds like you installed a pkg with lousy perms

Arch Linux

#1 2005-10-05 02:51:29

Needed to reinstall parts of Gnome after hardware problem?

#2 2005-10-05 08:43:01

Re: Needed to reinstall parts of Gnome after hardware problem?

#3 2005-10-06 18:52:40

Re: Needed to reinstall parts of Gnome after hardware problem?

#4 2005-10-07 12:35:47

Re: Needed to reinstall parts of Gnome after hardware problem?

#5 2005-10-07 13:52:18

Re: Needed to reinstall parts of Gnome after hardware problem?

#6 2005-10-15 19:36:29

Re: Needed to reinstall parts of Gnome after hardware problem?

#7 2005-10-16 06:25:38

Re: Needed to reinstall parts of Gnome after hardware problem?

#8 2005-10-16 06:30:29

Re: Needed to reinstall parts of Gnome after hardware problem?

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